#drdt unnamed classmate

[laly-481]

Hello I am here to annoy you about DRDT

I've been thinking about Mai Akasaki lately and what role she could play in the story. I've been thinking about Unnamed Classmate lately and what role she could play in the story. I have been gathering screenshots from the bonus videos for an hour and half while getting distracted by everything but it's fine

SO FIRST ! People tend to assume Mai and UC (Unnamed Classmate) are the same person. I do too, because UC visibly is her own character, with a plot going on behind the scene of the bonus videos, mentionned VERY briefly ; Mai being the most mysterious character, having her own page on the tumblr, and not-part-of-the-cast, we can assume they're the same.

But it would be silly to just assume stuff like that. For now, I will be referring to them as separate people, who MIGHT be connected but might not be as well.

Let's start with Mai !

My first point here is that Mai might be a Hope's Peak Student - but from Japan

First because of the most obvious part : her name is Japanese. That can indicate she would be from Japan, but we can always believe she just is from japanese origin : the names of the DRDT cast are from various origins but they all are from Hope's Peak US

What I'm more focused on is a fact I've overlooked when first seeing her design : she seem to be wearing the Hope's Peak uniform (a personnalized version, but that's not uncommon). At first, I thought it was just proving she was an Hope's Peak (US) student and didn't think about it much, but :

Hope's Peak US and Hope's Peak JP are said to be only similar in their core concept : that sound weird, in that way, to think the uniforms would be the same. Regardless of that fact, Min herself is not wearing a uniform at all, and i believe if there WAS a uniform she would definitively wear it.

Xander's ouftit can also look like Hope's Peak uniform, but it has a logo on it while the other doesn't, and the logo looks nothing like Hope's Peak's (I'm not sure what it is, i might just be stupid)

Edit : Silly me forgot that Xander wore his old school uniform ! Can't add screen since I'm on app rn but he says it during Levi's introduction. Problem solved !

So Mai is wearing the Hope's Peak JP uniform ! Unless her fashion sense is copying their uniform, I think it's safe to assume she went there at some point.

So if she IS an Hope's Peak student, she must have an Ultimate. And then there's the line associated to Min's code, referring to Mai, that always surprise me :

That is NOT something you usually say when referring to an Ultimate. Who is supposed to have a talent.

So what if Mai is the Ultimate Lucky Student ? Hope's Peak is not exactly known for taking any average student except in that case, especially Hope's Peak JP (you have Min's case in the US version, so it could be possible). Since she's wearing the Ultimate's uniform, we can also assume she's not a reserve course student.

If Mai is the Ultimate Lucky Student of Hope's Peak JP, that brings the question of how exactly she met the cast, since all of the quotes are visibly their PoV of her. Could she have went to Hope's Peak US after graduating from Hope's Peak JP ? Or just, went looking for Teruko in US ?

(may I add, Teruko went to Japan at some point in her life. i'm unsure of what to do with that information, but it does exist)

I'm honestly not sure about who Mai is from this point. It's possible she could have been part of some exchange program where Hope's Peak JP students go to Hope's Peak US ? She must have went there at some point, since the cast knows her.

There IS a person that seems to have been friends with the entire cast as well, and it's the Unnamed Classmate. So far she was visibly close friends with Xander and Min, and I'm assuming her main role is helping the scenario of each bonus video so we get to know the characters more, which would mean she's close friends with EVERYONE.

So let's talk about UC !

Not only she is friend with everyone, but the entire cast is from the same class (i don't remember if it's confirmed in the prologue, but since UC is both their classmates, we can assume they're right about that...)

So it's odd to me we have an entire class in the killing game (unless the classes aren't as small as Hope's Peak US's ones, but I usually take that as a consequence from the scouting system, so it should be as small), but one irrelevant girl who was with them.

She also seem quite important and to have an important plot going on behind the scenes (like her asking Xander for documents of Hope's Peak that are sensitive enought to avoid being brought up in public), very briefly mentionned. All that to say UC is an important character as well, and not just a plot-device for bonus videos.

Speaking of bonus videos, this is unrelated to the theory, but i think it can be interesting to know their order : (i forgot to get the screenshot, but i'm pretty sure UC implies it's something like the anniversary of the event they refer to in the video)

So Min's video is before Xander's (which mean so far they're in chronological order), because i think dates can always be important and the writing behind Min is probably not just random background.

Back to UC, one thing I noticed is how she doesn't actually seem to have a talent.

Min is saying "they" and not "you". UC is not included in the statement. She does that multiple times, like saying "all my classmates" but not "you" :

Which would imply just like Min, UC is in that situation where she would not have any talent if Hope's Peak wasn't a thing (tho it's pretty different from Min here from what I'm supposing).

Not only that, but UC herself doesn't refer to herself as an Ultimate :

Min's an Ultimate but not UC. UC is just attending Hope's Peak Academy, but she doesn't see herself as an Ultimate.

So there are two possibilities. Either there is, just like in Hope's Peak JP, a Reserve Course system, and class apparently get mixed together, or...

Or UC is joking about not having a real Ultimate talent when she says that. I'm not sure how much this is proof, but her being Ultimate Lucky Student makes more sense than being a reserve course student somehow in a class full of Ultimates.

Which brings us back to Mai. So yeah, there's a big possibility those two are the same person. Seeing how UC lacks so much knowledge about important things like the TRAGEDY, it could make sense for her to come from Hope's Peak JP, the school where as long as you're developping your talent, you don't have to attend class. I'm not sure how that works for Lucky Students, but teaching at Hope's Peak JP seems... Lacking

(The one problem with this theory is that Min seem to assume UC knows about the Hope's Peak US test for Ultimate Student, but it would be complicated if she lived in Japan at that point... So either she's masking this information by saying she "doesn't care about Hope's Peak", or I'm just wrong which is likely)

And they do have in common the fact they're looking for something

So my current idea is that Mai went to Hope's Peak JP, graduated, and started looking for Teruko. Since MonoTV mentionned Teruko went to Japan at some point, it's possible she was already there when Mai looked for her. Then, she went at Hope's Peak US, probably bringing Teruko with her.

That's when I would like to say something about Teruko getting in Hope's Peak. Because I actually have no idea how she would even get in the lottery when she couldn't go to school officialy, and doesn't have papers.

So what if the document UC is looking for is actually to enroll Teruko as the Ultimate Lucky Student (in her place ?), more or less officialy ? After all, Mai wanted to help Teruko, and going to Hope's Peak is kinda getting a guaranteed succesful future. That is a possiblity to me, even if at this point it's less of a theory and more of speculation and weird ideas that my brain came up with.

So yeah. I have all this stuff. Probably doesn't make as much sense as I think, but at least I tried.

Edit : I JUST THOUGHT OF IT since Teruko is most likely the reason there's a killing game, it would make sense for Mai to get the quote "It's all your fault" if she brought her in the class !!! Because then the killing game wouldn't have involved them if she didn't do that (or maybe not even have happened !!!)

[thefandomenchantress]

DRDT Character Popularity Poll Results

The results have been tallied! It's finally time to find out who the most popular DRDT Character really is! (...According to this specific format on this specific website).

For those unaware, this poll was conducted by asking people to write down their top 5 favorite DRDT characters in no particular order. Each time that character's name was written, it counted as one vote towards them. And, without further ado, these were the results!

---

18th Place: Elliot Cuevas/Felicity Giles/Unnamed Classmate

Elliot, Felicity, and Unnamed Classmate managed to receive exactly 1 vote each, putting them in last place. I can't say I'm too surprised, since there are so many excellent characters in the main cast to choose from. Still, Felicity, a character mentioned only in an ask game, managing to tie a character with a whole-ass MV dedicated to them as well as a character featured in two bonus episodes, is pretty impressive! So props to her!

(Someone wrote 'Relaxation Room Fish' in one of their slots, which I considered including to be funny, but I decided not to. One day the minnows will get the bonus episode they deserve).

17th Place: Mai Akasaki

Mai managed a whole 5 votes. I was a little surprised by that, since she only really has a hypothetical personality, but hooray for Mai! She's the most popular non-main cast member. I can totally see why people would be intrigued by the mystery surrounding her.

16th Place: MonoTV

MonoTV, self-proclaimed most popular DRDT character, is the least popular main cast member. How sad. With only 6 votes, it barely outranks Mai, and ties with her if you count Unnamed Classmate and Mai to be the same person. While it's silly emoticons and lore implications won a few people's hearts, it still can't compete with the human main cast members.

15th Place: Hu Jing

...I doubt many people are surprised by this. While Hu may have been one of the characters helped most by my decision to make people write down their top five characters instead of only their favorite, she still couldn't gather enough votes to get out of last place within the (human) main cast members.

Hu gathered 26 votes. While that came pretty close to 14th place's number, she ended up here. Like I said earlier, this isn't surprising. Hu's behavior is supposed to be flawed, but unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be the kind of behavior that most people enjoy watching as much as the more cartoonish character's antics. Still, she has her fans (including me, in case you couldn't tell haha).

Well, if there's one thing we can all agree on, it's that Hu should definitely slap the shit out of David next chapter. /j

14th Place: Min Jeung

Min barely managed to beat out Hu for 14th place with 28 votes. Her low placement, sadly, also isn't a surprise.

Min died in chapter one, and her screentime being limited definitely hurts her here. Not only did she have only a few mentions in chapter 2, but she also didn't haunt the narrative quite like Xander did. Xander managed to leave quite an impact on both David and Teruko. And to put it bluntly, Xander is a conventionally attractive male character with a ton of screentime during his time alive. With the way fandom is, he was almost definitely going to have more staying power than a female culprit, especially one with as little screentime as Min.

That doesn't mean she has no fans, though! There's a ton of cool Min content on this website, and she is one of few characters I have never seen anyone say they vehemently dislike. And how could they? She's such a charming little bookworm.

13th Place: Arturo Giles

Arturo received 33 votes. His relatively low placement isn't exactly something I didn't see coming, seeing as he spent all of chapter 2 stalking J and being generally pretty creepy.

That's not to say he's devoid of charm, of course. His backstory was also expanded on, and I don't think we'll ever forget "Shut your whore mouth!!!!". Arturo's a pretty interesting character, but until we see his full potential in chapter 3, this position in the ranking is pretty understandable. At least Aceturo was confirmed canon in the last five minutes of chapter 2 (/j).

12th Place: Levi Fontana

Oh, Levi. Such an interesting little guy who may or may not have committed multiple felonies.

Levi received 41 votes, beating out Arturo by a good margin. He seems to have gained a little popularity after his backstory was expanded on at the end of chapter 2, and I'm sure we're all excited to see where his character goes in chapter 3! Well, if he survives, but I refuse to admit him not surviving is a legitimate possibility haha.

Overall a decent showing, about what I expected for him! Our next character, however...

11th Place: Xander Matthews/Nico Hakobyan

Attentive readers may have noticed that, despite there being 16 main cast members not including MonoTV, there were only 15 slots when we started ranking them.

And that's because, against all odds, Nico and Xander managed to tie each other at 44 votes each, 3 votes above Levi.

Not only am I a little disappointed I managed to get a tie in these results, but I'm also rather surprised! I was always under the impression Xander was a rather popular character, so I was fully prepared for him to break the top ten. Seeing him underperform like this wasn't what I expected. I suppose the popularity of Xanvid may have always been what carried Xander's popularity, not Xander himself. After all, one of the few things keeping Xander relevant right now in canon is David.

As for Nico, they performed closer to my expectations. I was prepared for them to be somewhere in the middle ground when it came to popularity. I suppose them being alive longer than Xander was evened out by them almost committing murder...Except Xander also did that, but that's a whole other can of worms. A shame neither they nor Xander can make it to the top ten, but maybe next time.

10th Place: J Moreno

Woohoo, J makes it to the top ten! She got a total of 47 votes, and was one of the hardest to count since she has so many name variations haha.

J managed a pretty good showing. With more backstory details and her based-ness during the trial, I'm not surprised she was able to score a top ten spot. As someone who thinks non-violent tsunderes are very fun and amusing, I totally get the appeal.

9th Place: Eden Tobisa

Eden managed to also make it into the top ten with 49 votes, beating J by only 2 votes.

I'll be honest, I'm pretty impressed with Eden. I think she probably benefitted from the top five rule, since she got a lot of points from the 2nd to 5th slots. While the first slot didn't have to be your favorite character, most people probably did put their favorite there. So even if she isn't always people's most favorite, how could they possibly dislike such a sweet character?

8th Place: Arei Nageishi

Next up, Arei Nageishi, the Ultimate Bowler with 63 votes. That's quite a gap between her and Eden. But they still ended up next to each other, which can only mean one thing: Areden is canon /j.

Arei doing well is something I expected, since she's a bit of a wild card. If you like jerk characters, she's got you covered. If you like nice characters, she tried so hard to be good at the end. If you like crying, she died before she could achieve her dreams. Truly a character that pleases everyone, haha.

7th Place: David Chiem

...Holy shit. Seriously? Only 7th place? He barely made it into the top half of the main cast? Damn.

David got 64 votes, only beating Arei by one measly vote. Gotta say, David barely getting to the top half of the main cast in this list surprises me. I mean, he's so popular, right?!? Everyone was so obsessed with him right after chapter 2 ended! Who knows, maybe the hype died down a bit after people got used to his new act--I mean totally 100% real personality reveal.

6th Place: Rose Lacroix

After David shit-talked Rose, I'm sure we're all very amused to see her beating him, haha.

Rose gathered 66 votes, scoring 6th place by only 2 votes. Rather impressive, I didn't expect to see her up so high, but I'm pleased! After her little angsty speech during the second trial, I have to say I'm more endeared to her as well, so it's nice to see her defy my expectations. But then again, she's yet another character I've never seen a single person say they particularly dislike, so maybe I should've expected this.

5th Place: Whit Young

Whit makes it to the top five! Yay! He got here with 69 votes, a number I'm sure he'd have at least one joke about.

This is pretty expected, since I think most people are aware Whit is decently popular. A seemingly happy jokester who's secretly depressed is an archetype that usually endears a lot of people, in my experience.

Though I would like to give a shout-out to the person who wrote: "1. Whit, 2. Whit (mastermind version), 3. Whit (traitor version), 4. Whit (psychotic kanade version), 5. Whit (pinkie pie version)". I considered counting it as only 1 vote, since voting for the same character five times is against the rules, but I decided it was too funny to not count and counted it as 5 instead. So If you want to get technical, Whit is technically only 6th, without me breaking the rules. Sorry Rose.

4th Place: Charles Cuevas

See, my intervention allowed Whit to be next to Charles, it was meant to be. /j

Charles got 71 votes. I expected him to do well, but almost on the podium of top three? Wow! Congratulations, Charles. Like I said with Arei, people who like jerk characters and those who like nice characters are both appeased by characters like this, so it makes sense that he's rather popular. Especially since he has a bunch of cute sprites.

3rd Place: Veronika Grebenshchikova

Our top three begins with...Veronika, who got 72 votes! She barely managed to get past Charles by a singular vote!

I'm impressed with Veronika! I knew she was popular, but not top three popular! I suppose she is basically every Danganronpa fan to the extreme, so it makes sense most people like her at least a little bit. Not only does she have a super awesome design, but an interesting dynamic with many cast members as well.

2nd Place: Ace Markey

HOLY SHIT???? SECOND?!?!

Ace received a total of 77 votes, beating Veronika by a solid number, though not a crazy amount. And I'm...Super impressed with this! I knew more people started to like Ace after he died, but second? Wow! I guess I can never claim he's not one of the top three most popular characters ever again, haha.

Though...Since I hosted this poll, and I'm an Ace Markey-centric account, I should recognize Ace probably had a liiiiittle bit of an unfair advantage, since many of the people guaranteed to see the post the poll was in had to like him at least a little. Whoops! If a completely neutral party hosted this poll, maybe he would've ended up losing to Veronika or Charles, but I suppose we'll never know.

Anyways, Ace probably benefitted the least from this format, since he took an early lead in the first slot only to get closer to the others as time went on. A stark contrast from our champion, the most well-liked DRDT character...

1st Place: Teruko Tawaki

Congratulations, Teruko! She won by a HUGE landslide, getting a whopping 104 votes and blowing everyone else out of the water!

Teruko started out well, but not super well during the first slot, only to consistently get high numbers all the way through the 2nd to 5th slots. She was probably the character who benefitted the most from my top five system. While she may not be everyone's favorite, a lot of people still really like her! Making her the most well-liked, popular DRDT Character!

Since you see so many people saying that Teruko is hated on too much, it's nice to see her being able to pull out a victory on this one! There were 185 voters, which means more than half of the people who participated wrote down Teruko as one of their top five favorites. Her luck truly pulled through on this one!

---

And that's the end! Sorry this took so long, schoolwork has been mean to me lately. That's the reason I haven't posted in general that much either. But the results are finally complete! I hope you enjoyed this little experiment, and one of your top five did well!

[1moreff-creator]

thoughts on the "mai posseses monotv" theory? :eyes: like, it explains so much! the reason monotv could go anywhere was because mai was using the flipside!

Hey! Well, it’s certainly a theory with a lot of spirit to it!… I’m not funny. Anyways, it’s an interesting concept, and I can also use this as an excuse to talk about other theories drawing connection between MonoTV and Mai, so let’s see!

DRDT Full CH2 Spoilers. CW: Death, mentions of gun violence

(Also, “flipside” like- like the FNAF term? Did you people check my channel after watching Vivisection or… Certainly wasn’t ready to see it applied to DRDT lol)

Let’s start by the funniest thing about this theory: there’s technically evidence that ghosts exist in DRDT. In the most roundabout, absolutely-not-a-valid-argument way imaginable, but it technically exists. The argument is that DRDT takes place in the same universe as Trigger Happy Havoc, which takes place in the same universe as Ultra Despair Girls, and UDG has ghosts (and if there’s any in THH beyond Kirigiri “hearing the footsteps of death” or whatever I forgot about them). Clearly, the groundwork is there, absolute foreshadowing masterclass from dev-

Alright so obviously that’s silly, but even beyond that argument, there’s technically nothing disproving ghosts in DRDT. We do have semi-supernatural elements already, such as Teruko’s luck, Xander’s strength, Rose’s memory, MonoTV’s disappearance acts, and the whole Eyes situation. Really cool and awesome eyes, wouldn’t have them any other way; also not humans work. And of course, some people believe in a time loop, and that’s a perfectly valid theory, so why not ghosts? 

Well, unfortunately, while the ghosts are weird but not disqualifying, I think the Mai part is also a bit of an issue for me to believe it. It falls into ye old DRDT theorist trap of assuming any unidentified person (or personality, in this case) is Mai, which, let’s be clear, I’ve also dabbled in (see: “Mai is the girl Eden kissed” crack theory), but that doesn’t mean that these things aren’t always a bit of a long shot. 

In this case, probably the big question would be “what does it mean for Mai to possess MonoTV?” Or alternatively, to address the other idea going around, “what would it mean for the personality driver to be based on Mai?” It’s not straight up its identity; even DefaultTV refers to itself as “MonoTV” and “not a human.” 

DefaultTV: Greetings, everyone. My name is MonoTV.

DefaultTV: Perhaps you’ve mistakenly conflated me with a human and thought I have a ‘soul’ that is intrinsically connected to my body. But I am not human.

I mean it even says it doesn’t have a soul. Or, well, if it has one, it isn’t connected to the MonoTV body, but the former is more likely in my eyes. 

Also real quick, voices don’t match either. DefaultTV has the same VA as MonoTV, Artimmiss just has incredible range (and Unnamed Classmate is voiced by someone else). This doesn’t really affect any theories but it’s worth mentioning.

It’s also not personality, as far as we know. Unnamed Classmate is too nice to be MonoTV and too cheery to be DefaultTV, so unless Mai changed significantly in the time between the Bonus Episodes and the time she possesses MonoTV/her personality is used as a base for DefaultTV (which we currently have no evidence for), then the personalities don’t match.

There is, admittedly, one aspect where I could see the argument, and I believe this is where these theories come from. That being DefaultTV’s weird compassion towards Teruko, the implication that it “feels” guilt and grief, and it choosing to stop firing at Levi instead of just killing him and Teruko.

However, compassion and remorse over murder aren’t exclusive to Mai Akasaki, and I find it perfectly reasonable to assume those things are a result of DefaultTV being a “default” driver presumably intended for more general, non-killing game purposes, where those “feelings” would actually probably be nice for the AI to have.

As for not killing Levi, it’s important to remember that MonoTV and DefaultTV are always making the conscious decision of not killing everyone. It’s like David said in 2-12; if you just wanted to murder these 16 people, you wouldn’t need the killing game. Mono/DefaultTV’s stated primary goal is not “kill all these people,” but:

DefaultTV: To run this killing game until the death of every participant.

“Run this killing game.”

The reason letting the attempt to destroy MonoTV go unpunished would go against its purpose is, as I currently understand it, not because it lowers the kill count, but because it would be a threat to the integrity of the killing game. If DefaultTV lets this loophole go, then it sets a precedent that it will always follow the rules to a T, and that encourages the cast to look for further loopholes. Instead, it just needs to show that it’s willing to bend the rules to follow their spirit and not their letter.

That’s why it’s satisfied with warning shots and why it shuts the gun off: it sent the message it needed to send, but DefaultTV killing Levi, who is completely unrelated to the attempt on its life, would go against the spirit and letter of Rule 8, “MonoTV will never directly commit a murder.” Again, always follow the spirit, but show it’s willing to bend the letter to maintain the integrity of the game; “To run this killing game until the death of every participant.”

I hope that made sense :v

Moving on, there’s also logistic problems. Since MonoTV seems to have been created specifically for the killing game, the “possession” theory is incompatible with the theory that the killing game was created in response to Mai’s death, unless we’re pulling a Stitchwraith where Mai first possessed a TV or something and then that got put into the MonoTV body (and that still runs into the issue with the “no soul attached to body” statement). And at this point, one of these seems a bit more likely than the other. 

Speaking of, logistical issues also come with the idea that DefaultTV is based off of Mai. Because why would XF-Ture Tech choose to base their default drivers on, quote Min’s Mai quote, “an average girl with nothing special at all about her?” Wouldn’t it make more sense for them to base it off of someone working at the company or otherwise connected to it, such as altDRDT’s XF or even Min?

… Wait, Min… Possession… Min possessing MonoTV… Alright new theory- /j

(To be extremely clear; Min possessing MonoTV is even less likely than Mai, I’m just being silly :p)

There may be even more problems I’m currently not fully realizing, but what I’ve listed is enough for me to consider both theories discussed as highly unlikely at this point in time. Still cool theories and I wouldn’t mind if they got confirmed, but just very unlikely. Would make for fun AUs though! 

As an extra, I’ll throw in what I actually think this weird compassion is leading up to, though to be clear it’s pretty wild speculation and will probably be wrong.

I explained before that I believe it makes sense for DefaultTV to be a far more morally upstanding AI than MonoTV, as “default drivers” would presumably be made with more general purposes in mind. It’s also been established in the main series that Whit, someone who I currently believe is very likely to survive or at least make it pretty far in, knows about machine learning.

Whit: Machine learning! [Charles and I] both like machine learning!

Now, I’m not sure that this is exactly AI in the way DefaultTV and MonoTV seem to be, but it’s close enough. If this Checkov’s Gun is ever to be fired (and Whit isn’t the mastermind), it’s very possible that, around Trial 6, Whit somehow manages to take out the directives that make MonoTV/DefaultTV dangerous, allowing the more compassionate and remorseful side of the AI to help the survivor cast in some way.

Also Charles could do this too but I don’t think he’s making it to the end so. There's option 2 ig.

Is this completely insane and almost entirely unfounded? Yes! Do I expect this to actually happen? I give it like a 5% chance on the high end. Nevertheless, do I consider this to be the best guess we can currently make as to where both Whit’s knowledge of machine learning and DefaultTV’s compassion are going? Also yes, again provided Whit isn’t the mastermind, which is a pretty large assumption in and of itself. Is it much better than MonoTV being possessed by Mai Akasaki? Not really! But if you’re sending me an ask you presumably want my opinions, and there they are!

Thanks for the ask! Very fun to ramble about this goddamn dog.

[a-star-that-burns-brightly]

So I've been looking back at DRDT videos for a post I'm compiling, and I just came up with a crazy crack theory that I need someone to entertain me on.

Unnamed Classmate: The Ultimates, back then called Super High School Level students, who graduated from that new school, helped to rebuild the world exactly as it was before the Tragedy happened.

So whenever I've rewatched Min's bonus episode, for some reason I always assumed that this was referring to the DR1 survivors. But notice how it is explicitly stated that the SHSL students graduated from the new school, as in the rebuilt HPA after the tragedy ended. So it couldn't had been them, it had to have been a new group of students. So here's my nonsensical theory: What if these students who helped to rebuild the world post-tragedy are the cast from DT-Dev's second fangan? DT-Dev has been intentionally very vague as to how related this fangan is to DRDT

What relation does this Fangan have to do with DRDT? Who knows.

However, since we already have confirmation that XF-Ture Tech exists in this separate fangan a-la the logo on XF's jacket, I think it's safe to assume that they are at least somewhat connected. And also, DRDT does seem to be following the Canon DR timeline or at least an alternate universe of it, and we know from Canon DR that the JPN Hope's Peak takes in high-schoolers, and DT-Dev has confirmed that the cast of the second fangan is all 18+

How old is the cast? 18 or above.

I don't think it's a stretch to say that these characters could be graduates from Hope's Peak. Not to mention, due to the lack of information we have about the second fangan in general, we also don't know when it takes place, meaning it could very well take place before the events of DRDT. I swear I'm not going crazy I need someone to entertain me.

[anderscim]

✦ another (even wilder) theory with bagel

similar to my teruko theory, this one also has a lot of room for rebuttal. to be honest, a lot of the evidence i have for this is quite flimsy (_ _;)

this theory is mainly about mai akasaki’s connection to the cast, and how it relates to the killing game in general.

take this with a grain of salt as always

//spoilers for up to chapter 2 part 1 of drdt

//additional spoilers for bonus content, such as the bonus episodes and the new “literature girl insane” MV

there shouldn’t be any tally5 spoilers if i’m not wrong ( ・∇・)

here’s one question i have for you all: how many members in the cast, right now, actually know mai akasaki?

it’s definitely implied in the bonus episodes and the quotes on her character page that she’s connected with everyone in the current cast, but there was a paradox i noticed—if it even is one, that is (-.-;)—that led me to think that this question…may actually be a lot more complicated than it seems.

let’s bring up the bonus episodes first. min’s bonus episode is definitely during their time at hope’s peak. they’re literally at the school, studying about it, discussing min’s “role” as an ultimate compared to the other students, etc. basically, many details point to min and “unnamed classmate” (who is presumably mai, based on the flowers in the dialogue box of the bonus episodes matching up with those on mai’s tattoo) being students of hope’s peak academy in the united states. though there’s no physical evidence or exact basis for this, i would personally like to think that xander’s bonus episode is placed during spring break at the academy. he is talking to his “classmate,” after all—and in that case, it would also chronologically line up with min’s (whose bonus episode takes place a week before spring break).

presumably, the other bonus episodes will follow a similar pattern, and we will see mai/UC talking to other members of the DRDT cast to get to know them more. i will assume this means that the whole cast, not just min and xander, have been to hope’s peak before—and attended class as students there. after all, it would be the only way the bonus episodes would make sense.

however, the dialogue from the first few episodes of the series suggests something else.

as implied from the dialogue, all of the students believe they are only entering the entrance ceremony of hope’s peak as freshmen, and had no previous affiliation with the school. including xander.

obviously, this means that at the very least, their memories have been tampered with to remove anything regarding their experience at hope’s peak academy.

— sorry, very quick side tangent (*'▽'*) going by this theory, if the drdt cast genuinely went to hope’s peak, it’s very likely that they had to do a bunch of paperwork and submit a lot of information for their enrollment—which probably includes medical information and any accommodations that were necessary for their well-being. additionally, if we assume that the cast attended hope’s peak for a year or a few years, it’s likely that whoever the mastermind is, they had the time to know the rest of their classmates well enough to be able to identify their preferences either way, this would actually be a pretty strong explanation as to why many components of their environment seem to be extremely fine-tuned to their preferences and necessities, despite no recollection of sharing that information with anyone involved in the killing game. though i bet this was already obvious, i felt like it was something i probably should bring up.

—

in that case, however—how would it affect their memories with mai?

as i can’t exactly speculate for the other students, i’m going to trace back to what i know. at the very least, it seems to be implied that min only met mai after being admitted into hope’s peak academy. min essentially drove her entire life around schoolwork, and studying for the “ultimate contest for eminent students,” the test that allowed min to receive her title—it’s likely that before then, she never surrounded herself with friends nor had any time for herself to explore her own hobbies. which probably means that she wasn’t acquainted with mai before enrolling into hope’s peak.

her backstory is really sad, by the way. i really wish she lived longer ( ´△｀)

as for when it comes to the other characters, i would like to remind you that hope’s peak scouts across the country for their students—so it’s more logical to assume that many of them resided in hometowns that were very far away from each other. so unless mai’s talent was the ultimate traveler or something, i think it would be very improbable for her to know everyone in the cast before their admittance into hope’s peak.

taking this into account, and assuming that the cast’s memories of hope’s peak were completely erased, there’s a possibility that the cast doesn’t remember mai akasaki, despite her connections with them. the only exception would be teruko, who clearly remembers mai—and seems to have been helped by her when enrolling into the academy in the first place, pointed out by this theory here by @laly-481.

…or at least, that’s what i thought at first—until someone decided to kick in the door while holding a new music video.

i guess in that case, the biggest question i should answer is this—why does david remember mai?

getting into very, very wild theory territory here. take what i’m about to say with a grain of salt assuming that the music video is really a reflection of david’s worldview and thought process, please ignore the fact that i’m acting like the antithesis of occam’s razor right now, then there’s no reason for mai akasaki to be featured in the video—much less have a photo of her placed in a wooden frame—if he didn’t remember her.

yet, there she is, on the right:

she even has a little description about how she was “someone dearly loved,” which fits perfectly with her character and the secret quotes on her profile page.

this is indicative of the fact that david remembers mai—and knows her well enough to even make an accurate statement about her. but, how?

obviously there’s the simpler explanation of “david knew mai before they went to hope’s peak,” which is of course a totally valid explanation—however, some details about the new music video made me consider a possible, different theory.

a grain of salt? more like, a mountain of salt from here on out

when i was watching the “literature girl insane” music video earlier, i noticed something interesting about this frame: 

here, xander doesn’t have his eyepatch. though i’m not throwing away the possibility that this was just a technical error on the artist’s side—personally, this could be a indication that david knew xander before the killing game. 

seeing as all of the cast are connected by the unnamed “classmate,” after all, it’s a likely possibility that the current participants of the killing game were originally in the same class at hope’s peak academy. which means, they all probably knew each other before this whole killing game went down. 

in an earlier theory, i talked about how xander may have been the person in the opening prologue cutscene, and how he probably had his eye injured at that time. given that the person speaking during that scene is aware of the killing game (and is expressing their desire to end it), this event likely happened right before the killing game started—otherwise, it would be pretty imprudent for the mastermind to announce it and then wait for an entire month to set up everything, then make everyone fall unconscious, then remove their memories, etc. 

what i’m trying to get here is that the cast, had they still retained their memories from hope’s peak, would definitely remember xander with both eyes. however, we know this to not be the case—from his introduction, we all see that xander had already lost his right eye from the beginning of the killing game. therefore, for david to remember xander from before he got his eye injury, he must’ve had at least some partial memory of hope’s peak—otherwise, it would be highly unlikely. this would give a possible explanation as to why the frame of xander without his eyepatch appears in the “literature girl insane” music video. and maybe give a possible explanation as to why david cared about xander despite only knowing him for ~three days. and defended him passionately during the first trial even after a lot of evidence pointed to him attacking teruko.

this also would explain why david remembers mai—assuming they were in the same class, since mai likely had incredibly close connections with the cast (including david), it’s more than likely that david cared about mai and possibly (vaguely) remembered her even after having his memories tampered with.

well, the “no-eyepatch” deduction completely hinges on the assumption that xander didn’t like, take off his eyepatch in front of david like he did with teruko, so i may be completely wrong about this. however, it is interesting that such a small detail was included in the mv.

so is this one:

i don’t know how it is for you guys, but that fork seems suspiciously similar to the fork in the prologue (which i theorized to be the item that caused the injury to xander’s right eye). additionally, the fork literally stabbing the “face” of the clock is… quite symbolic. it may be just me. i’m not sure. (-_-;) though, it could suggest that david remembers that scene—and perhaps knows about the “possible escape” of killing teruko? i highly doubt he was the one who wrote the note (rather i think that was xander himself), but it may account for that 2nd vote for teruko in the first trial.

my personal (unhinged) theory (with really no way to back it up) is that david may have retained partial memories of his experience at hope’s peak—but probably only a little, definitely not all of them. this may explain why he remembers mai and seems to recall xander before his eye injury (despite xander seemingly not remembering that they’ve met before)—but hasn’t called out the true mastermind nor seems to remember an escape yet. also, though his current behavior in the 2nd trial may imply that he’s trying to end the killing game early via wrong vote, i personally think he’s just breaking down and acting suicidal without that objective in mind, based on his actions.

little side note at the end: it would be absolutely amazing (and ironic) if the two people with the most distant character relationships with the rest of the cast (as of now) happened to remember the single person that had the closest relationships to all of them.

minor clarification/add-on: i just realized that i never said this, really sorry about that. m(_ _)m but basically, i don’t think david has any sort of clear memories regarding xander and mai at hope’s peak—rather, when i say “partial memories” i meant more along the lines of “vague nostalgia you can’t quite place.” he might somewhat recognize their faces at most, but likely not any clear sequences of events. and honestly, what i wanted to talk about more in regards to this theory is more about the fact that only teruko (and maybe david) remember mai in the first place—the rest of the cast probably can’t, with the way their memories were wiped.

uh, this was quite the ride. i truly felt like the antithesis of occam’s razor as i was writing this

however—this theory likely has a lot of points that can be argued against, as well as many other possibilities i didn’t consider. please, don’t be afraid to drop them in your reblogs or comments, i would love to read them!

and as always, take this with a (larger than usual) grain of salt

[itz-kiniz-blog]

Xanders survivors guilt, and a theory about Chariton!

Honestly I don’t see enough people asking; what exactly happened in chariton?? It’s what most believe was the thing Xander has survivors guilt for- but what even happened??

I personally have a theory. 

Spoilers for the second bonus episode below!!

During the episode, it’s evident that Xander has done research on the incident and even mentions that it was on the news. This makes It seem like this was a big incident. Considering Chariton is a poorer town. I can support this off how unnamed classmate mentioned that anyone in chariton barely had money. And the way unnamed classmate worded it, makes it seem like they might have known xander back in chariton (?) but that’s for another day. And it’s most likely a small town due to how the nearest hospital it’s literally miles away. Now, too, how they died. It’s evident at least one person but most likely the entire town of residents within chariton died. Xanders description of this is “rotting from the outside in. Your limbs would stop working before your organs did, and you would sit there and feel yourself die, and not be able to do anything.” I don’t know about you, but you know my first guess? *poison*. So, I googled it! The first result I get? Strychnine. What’s that you ask? Oh! It’s an ***odorless, white, bitter powder***. However, it can be mixed and used in solution. The effects? 

“Strychnine prevents the proper operation of the chemical that controls nerve signals to the muscles. The chemical controlling nerve signals works like the body’s “off switch” for muscles. When this “off switch” does not work correctly, muscles throughout the body have severe, painful spasms. Even though the person’s consciousness or thinking are not affected at first (except that the person is very excitable and in pain), eventually the muscles tire and the person can’t breathe.”

Or in other words, it stops your muscles and causes severe pain until you suffocate to death.

Doesn’t that sound like rotting from the outside in? Now, we can bring out one of the big boy questions of the hour. How were they poisoned? Simple, the river. It’s specified that it’s charitons only water source, and easy to access.

Boom. Also strychnine is commonly spread through contaminated water.

No one can recover because no one could afford medical treatment. Boom!! Dead chariton. But who poisoned the river? Who has the ability and access to strychnine so that they could poison the river? ***Duke Spurling.*** I believe that he did. He has obviously high status, and he’s known to xander as selfish. I believe that Duke spurling had a big influence on chariton, and then got tired of it. Saw it as a waste of time, so he dumped the poison within the river. This is also evident in a few other things. 

1. It took weeks to move the bodies.

While it’s understandable why they were understaffed, why couldn’t they make a funeral service? Why did it take them weeks? Unless someone was saying not to mention it. Hell, the episode's name is “visiting graves” so they had the materials too. So why didn’t they? Who told them  Not to do anything? Duke spurling.

2. The fact that he has the title Duke is suspicious. A high class title could give him high access.

3. Duke spurling can be connected to the country, since of the same last name. So he has a rich asset.

4. The chariton incident was only released to the public a MONTH after it occurred.

I believe this was done purposely so that no one would figure out how to save anyone within chariton. To make sure they die. However, who could manipulate the media? Maybe a million dollar company could pay off a few people. Keep ‘em silent. 

Also, this isn't the first time Strychnine specifically is used in DRDT. It’s Charles’ motive weapon, as mentioned in ch 1 ep 1

And that’s my theory!

Source of definition:

https://emergency.cdc.gov/agent/strychnine/basics/facts.asp

Bonus episode:

https://youtu.be/IbIxj5_kPCI

[cetos-tide]

This is amazing!!

The only thing I have to add is in relation to the “flowers of an unknown species.”

They just look so familiar, but I can’t place them—

Oh. Yeah.

So, these flowers are related to our favorite mystery girl, Mai Akasaki, as shown by her having a tattoo of the same flowers.

In the MV, the flowers are placed next to the letters, which represent Xander. This could be a metaphor for David putting Mai and Xander “on the same level” a.k.a them being the only ones that he actually cares about, but that’s mostly speculation.

So, the flowers are just another reference to Mai, right?

WRONG! (Well, probably.)

There’s one other place that we see these flowers...

That’s right, we’re going full conspiracy theorist here.

I’m sure anyone that’s been on DRDT tumblr for more than ten minutes has seen the theory that the “Unnamed Classmate” from both Xander and Min’s bonus episodes is Mai. And the flower connection seems to support this.

You could say that the flowers are a symbol of the entire class, as Min and Xander also have the flowers on their text boxes, but I don’t think that there will be a secret eighteenth student along with Mai.

Sidenote: Apparently, Akasaki can be translated to “red cape” which might have some connections to Xander?? This could theoretically explain why the letters and the flowers are placed next to each other in the MV and why Mai and Xander look so similar (red hair and yellow eyes). But still, Mai being Unnamed Classmate is wayyyy more likely.

TL;DR- The flowers in the LGI MV represent Mai, who is probably the Unnamed Classmate.

—

Edit: Also, as someone who unfortunately took Latin for four years, “Ego cogito ergo (turbatus) sum” means something closer to “I think therefore I am (disturbed)”, which I think fits Rose’s character better, with her semi-breakdown when refusing to see Arei’s body. Turbatus means something along the lines of unsettled or disturbed and is, fun fact, the root of the word “turbulence”.

An Analysis on the Literature Girl Insane MV!

Hey! You might not know me that much, as I’m not active in the DRDTheory community, as I’ve dubbed it, but my name is Blanket! Technically, this is a work of collaboration between the majority of DRDT Twitter, but it’s mainly just an analysis of stuff I couldn’t do by myself.

Keep reading

[biggestcringefailure]

WAKE UP BABE BONUS VIDEO STREAMING

[koivoid]

DRDT Bonus episode analysis

Hmm. Under cut in case of spoilers.

(Hope’s Peak Academy will sometimes be shortened to HPA.)

Also, please feel free to suggest anything that I could add here, because I exhausted my one singular brain cell thinking of theories for this. Possible grammar or spelling mistakes too.

1. Okay, first things first. US Hope’s Peak backstory. 

So, it’s confirmed that the US Hope’s Peak was built after the Tragedy, so it’s probably not very related to the canon killing games. 

So first, Japan’s ultimate students rebuilt Hope’s Peak Academy to restore peace and hope to the world. Things eventually returned to normal. The Ultimate students were hailed as saviors, and the US decided to build Hope’s Peak in the US so they could have ultimate students of their own.

(Sorry for varied image sizes, I was too lazy to crop them properly)

So, this last screenshot here reveals that there are two HPAs in the US. I wonder if that’s relevant.

Also, “weird curriculum”? Huh, I wonder how the curriculum is. Unfortunately, we don’t have any hints on this. (At least a think so.)

So then, what happened in the one year where the entire cast had to lose their memory?

Well, clearly they lost all memories of school life at HPA. But something else major must’ve happened, right? That must be related to why the killing game started. And I also believe that a few out of the cast had involvement in it, specifically Xander, Teruko, and Mai, but I won’t explain here.

(Oh. There’s also an big organization mentioned called “XF-Ture Tech”. Min was visited by the founder, of all people. Also, it’s called “future tech” while the mascot of the killing game is a talking TV cat??? Hmm....)

2. The “Unnamed Classmate”

The unnamed classmate is most likely Mai Akasaki, the red-haired girl in Teruko’s flashback. I just realized that some people might not know about her existence, so I’ll make a summary post on her later, as well as the hidden quotes and everything.

In Teruko’s flashback, and in a hidden quote on Mai’s profile, it confirms that she has a floral tattoo on her arm. And if you go to the DRDT tumblr, there’s a post with all the sprite patterns; you can see her tattoo there. Mai’s tattoo is strikingly similar to the stylized text boxes in this video, and it can’t possibly be a coincidence.

Another thing is, if you look at the CG post on the tumblr, you’ll see a phone close to the camera with a bunny phone charm. While it could be Min’s, there’s a higher chance of it being Mai’s as it states on her profile that she likes phone charms.

Something you may be wondering... what’s Mai’s talent? On her profile, it lists her talent as ultimate ???. However, it’s pretty much confirmed that Mai is an ultimate as she is in the same class as Min, in East Class 27. And Min says, “I can’t help but compare myself to all my classmates who have real ultimate talents,” implying that Mai has a genuine talent.

Her talent can’t be something that can lead her to a career, as she’s studying with Min for an official HPA test. The question is, what’s the test for? And why does she have to take it? It’s possible that she’s a lucky student, but:

It would be kinda weird if she needed to write how amazing it was to be an ultimate if she was randomly selected. Also, Mai says “It’s not like you’re a Lucky Student who was picked by lottery.”

Oh, and also:

It’s implied that Mai doesn’t care much about Hope’s Peak. So then, why did she go? Did she want to help someone? We don’t know. (But it is implied that she bonded with everyone in her class, if you look at the quotes on Mai’s profile.)

But if Mai was in East Class 27, then there’d be 17 students in one class. Unless... one person doesn’t actually belong in the class. (Or maybe I’m overthinking it and 17 students is the norm.)

So what’s Mai’s relation to the current killing game?

I honestly don’t know.

Maybe she was supposed to be in it, but avoided it. Maybe Mai’s dead, and that’s why she can’t participate. Idk.

3. One last thing.

Him?? Who’s him? Is it their homeroom teacher?

Wait, but now we have an idea on who the “Teacher” is!

(Credits to @xandersimpinghours​ and the anons for this image! Seriously, go look at this blog, there’s a lot of lore and theory stuff there too.)

So this letter... or whatever this is implies that there was another killing game before DRDT, or this was written by one of the DRDT participants. And if this is the same “Teacher” that him mentioned...

That means one of the DRDT characters wrote this, either during a separate killing game or in the future of DRDT, or Mai is trapped somewhere and/or turned into despair.

So, in conclusion?

I literally don’t know my brain is frying itself from typing all this.

[thefandomenchantress]

Recently I was watching a YouTube video where all the characters in a franchise were ranked by popularity, but instead of everyone voting for just their favorite character, everyone voted for their top 5 favorite characters.

And it got me thinking about what a list like that would look like if it was done with DRDT Characters instead. And, well...

(Let me know if the link isn't working for whatever reason).

I decided to do it myself. My curiosity got the better of me! Plus, I thought it'd be fun. I've only ever seen popularity decided through brackets or voting for a singular character in the DRDT fandom, so I thought seeing how the results would look this way would be really cool.

I know it's a bit strange to put this out before the chapter finishes, but I figure after the chapter is done, not as many people will be checking the tags, but posting right after the next episode might make this post get lost in the large onslaught of posts that always comes after one. And I'm planning to leave the poll open for at least a week, so if people would prefer to wait and vote after the last episode, they can do so.

The rules are outlined in the poll, but I'll also repeat them here: The only rule is that your characters of choice must be ones with names! So not only can you vote for the main cast, but their family, friends, etc. if they happen to be one of your favorites (The only exception to the name rule is Unnamed Classmate since they're probably Mai).

In a week or possibly a bit longer, I'll tally up the responses and make a new post outlining how well every character did! Then we'll truly know which DRDT character is the most popular in the DRDT (Tumblr) fanbase!

[tuulikannel]

Okay, so I remembered another thing I had on my mind, so... more drdt spoilers ahead

I'm guessing that the person in the beginning of the game, the one who was bleeding after being attacked by some girl, was Xander. Maybe that's when he lost his eye? And... was he attacked by Teruko? Perhaps? Also, he (if it is him) had some documents there, and the unnamed classmate from the bonus episodes mentioned in passing he had asked Xander to get her some document...

Also! Talking about her! I really feel like she has to be that redhead Teruko remembered. I don't know, maybe this is a stretch, but… the redhead had a flowery tattoo, and it kinda makes me think about the textboxes of the bonus episodes.

Also, a couple of points more about the secrets! The fact that Hu didn't want to tell who's secret she has makes me think it maybe really was Min's. It's not relevant to this case as it's about someone who's dead, and it kind of makes sense Hu wouldn't want to tell everyone that about Min.

And Levi... when he was talking with Eden in the beginning of the second chapter, he said he doesn't know how to grieve, or something like that, and he'll see how others will act and copy them. And when Eden says it's ok to grieve as he normally does, he says "then I won't do anything." Which is... kinda weird, to be honest. Maybe this has something to do with him feeling no remorse for someone's death? Maybe he doesn't really understand emotions, or something? Also, maybe his family disowned him because of a murder? We'll see, I guess.

But, these are my guesses:

Teruko: killing game is your fault Xander: dead family David: manipulation Levi: murderer Hu: poison Min: harm yourself Veronika: suicide attempts

Random Despair Time thoughts

Mainly just notes for myself, I doubt there’s any overly shocking insights in this XD Spoilers ahead...

Firstly, the remaining secrets. I’m pretty sure David lied about Xander’s. (It actually feels pretty obvious, tbh?) What he claimed to be Xander’s secret is most likely Teruko’s… keeping in mind how the game started. He might have done that simply because saying in the middle of the trial that Teruko is the reason behind the killing game… well, it sure would have made a mess of everything. Xander’s real secret probably is the one Min had, about the dead family (there’s the Visiting Graves extra too which very strongly points in that direction). (Now, does David know that that Min had Xander’s secret? Otherwise it’d be a bit risky to claim he had Xander's secret, cause someone else might have the real one.)

Anyway, as for David’s secret… I’m relatively sure it’s the manipulation one. It fits a bit too well… :/ Could be wrong, of course.

As for the other ones, the “harm yourself for fun” thing sure makes one think of Veronika… ^^;;

The murderer… could be Levi. He’s shown he’s got moments when his temper flares. But no remorse, huh? I wonder.

…and would Hu be the poisoner? That’d… be something. But somehow, I don’t find it too unbelievable. This might be about some big music competition, and it might not even be any serious poisoning. Some laxatives would be enough to make sure you’re not on the stage competing.

Oh, I almost forgot the 3 suicide attempts one! Would that be Min, then? Again… I could sort of see it… tho she definitely wasn’t someone wanting to die at the end of ch.1. And thinking about her bonus episode… she had this goal all her life, to be able to become the Ultimate Student. Would she have tried to throw it all away, three times? Though who knows? I mean, it must have been really tough for her, and maybe it got too much, at times? Maybe she thought she’d not be able to do it?

Hmm. Or then I should switch Hu and Min? Maybe there were some study competitions Min was desperate to win? I’m not sure if the suicides really fit Hu, though……. Or then, switching Veronika and Min? Maybe Veronika was the “hopeless child,” and Min didn’t get so focused on becoming the Ultimate Student for her family but instead in order to stop herself from harming herself?

Wait, Veronika had the suicide motive, right? Then it shouldn't be hers, if no one got their own. On the other hand, this is Veronika we're talking about… maybe she lied about that, and she did get her own motive. Maybe that's why she wasn't telling whose it is? That… sounds like something she would do. Besides, you'd think someone ends up with their own motive, if they're distributed randomly. Okay… I might be guessing that that's actually Veronika's secret, and then Min's is the "harming yourself" one?

Okay, so, I’ve no idea. XD Here’s some other random things. But first, I'm gonna put this here so it's easier to find it if I want to take another look at it…

Ok, the other things. Firstly, the MonoTV. Are there at least two people controlling it? First MonoTV gave Teruko new clothes, and a bit later asked her if she has new clothes cause she “looks a bit different” or something like that. Either the computer has some missing memory, or then there are several people involved who might not know all the details of what the other(s) do. And one of them is apparently into fashion (and one definitely not so, barely noticing that Teruko has changed clothes.) (Which I love, btw. Characters actually not wearing the same clothes every single day? Wow. ^^)

Secondly, Xander. Did he pull a Rantaro and somehow leave himself a message about killing Teruko? Does he have some kind of a DID condition or something such? I mean, that thing he said, that he needs to trust himself… sounded quite peculiar. Though he also said, why did you tell me to kill her... So which is it? Someone else, or he himself, who told him to do that? That simple note, “kill Teruko Tawaki” doesn’t quite sound enough to make him do it… but… I wonder, what if it was in his things, written in his handwriting? Well, I’ve no clue, but I’m quite curious about this, and I bet I’m not alone here. XD

Hmm… what else? That redhaired girl who looks like Xander that Teruko remembered? Is she the unnamed classmate in the bonus episodes? But she sure looks a lot like Xander, too much that I could think that it would be a coincidence. But still, if Xander’s family is dead… hmm. I even had the utterly weird idea at one point that what if Xander is trans XD (But then that girl couldn’t have been with him in the train. If it was her, that is.)

…I feel like I had something else in mind too, but… I can’t remember what it was. Oh well. I guess that’s enough for tonight.

[a-star-that-burns-brightly]

Arturo's talent confuses me a lot

Okay so on this fine 12:30 PM I was thinking about the newest QnA, and how DRDTDev said this in it

And it was always something that intrigued me a lot because I really could not figure out what it meant or why the exact ages of the cast were kept hidden. That is, until I started thinking about everyone's favorite(...?) Ultimate Plastic Surgeon, Arturo Giles. Specifically, his talent in question. Because to put it bluntly: How in the everliving FUCK is Arturo a Plastic Surgeon at his age Now you might wonder just what I mean by that, and as such let me run you down the requirements to be a plastic surgeon in the US from what I have researched:

Now obviously these are only three sources, and this is mainly referring to the US because that is where DRDT takes place, but the point still stands. For Arturo to become a licensed plastic surgeon, he would have to go through a six year program/residency for plastic surgery, obtain a bachelor's degree (or I guess whatever Hope's Peak's version of a bachelors degree is) which is canonically a four-year university in the DRDTverse, as WELL as an extra four years in medical school.

(Now fair warning, I am not the best when it comes to reading comprehension, so there might be some things in the screenshots I linked that I ultimately missed. And if so, you're allowed to (politely) point it out to me !) Even if there are a few things I misread, it still brings into question how Arturo obtained his talent when you look at his possible age Now obviously, as I mentioned before, the DT cast's actual age is a spoiler. But that doesn't mean we can't speculate based on the information we do have from the series

(A challenger has approached: Min Jeung /j) This line from the first bonus episode is the closest thing we get to a clear-cut age for the DT cast, where Unnamed Classmate / Mai says that Min is 18. Unfortunate jinxing aside, this also brings back up the fact that Hope's Peak in the DTverse is a four-year university course akin to US college (I'll actually include a screenshot this time)

So it can be assumed that this bonus episode (and I assume Xander's), takes place during their first year at Hope's Peak, and assuming that the rest of the cast is the same age they were all 18-19 during their first year. But that isn't all ! As remember, these guys have their HPA memories snatched from them, so let's cover that as well

Now, we don't know how long "a few years" could be. It could be only one year like Rose said initially, it could be two, three, hell ten for all we know. However, Min (as posted before) and Xander don't seem to have aged that much in comparison to their current appearences. So I'm going to assume (keyword here, assume) that about three years at most have been taken from them. as that would put them largely around the end of HPA. So with all of this in mind, that would mean that Arturo is around 19-22 during the events of the death game, but even with that considered, that still means that Arturo was scouted and given the title of Ultimate Plastic Surgeon at 18. And that is where my confusion lies since that...is basically impossible DRDT-Dev has clearly thoroughly researched all of the talents of the cast and how they work in the DTverse and in general seems to be very intricate when it comes to their writing, so I highly doubt they would make an oversight like this. There has got to be a reasoning for this. And I can think of three possible ones 1. Arturo is some kind of prodigy in the medical and cosmetic surgery field which could've led to him becoming a plastic surgeon much earlier in life than one typically would 2. Arturo is just straightup lying about his ultimate talent for whatever reason, possibly fabricating the license on his coat. He's obviously not faking his medical knowledge as we've seen in the actual series, but him faking his ultimate isn't exactly ruled out 3. The DRDT cast are much older then we or they realize, and there is another reason why they still look to be in their early 20s (I swear to god if this turns out to be some virtual world shit I am actually going to go insane /lh)

...Or the 4th reason that being I AM looking too deep into this, but whatever it's fun to overanalyze this shit Please let me know what you think, I'd love to hear other people's opinions on this !